Madagascar – Imperium In Imperio / Goodbye East, Goodbye West [Gaarden Records]
***Boy Is Fiction – As Far From Here As Possible / Broadcasts In Colour [Sun Sea Sky]
Gui Boratto – Eggplant / Take My Breath Away [Kompakt]
***Hadoken – Mandala / Luminary [Ericrock]
Beware Of Safety – Raingarden / Dogs [The Mylene Sheath]
***Red Sparrowes – Giving Birth To Imagined Saviors / The Fear Is Excrutiating, But Therein Lies The Answer [Sargent House]
Matthew Robert Cooper – Miniatures V / Miniatures [Gaarden Records]
Another Electronic Musician – Fields And Axioms / States Of Space [n5MD]
***8yone – A Sudden Dream Of 3 Girls / Crank Chameleon [Boltfish]
Alpen – A Meditation On Flight / New Weird Australia Vol 4. Compilation [New Weird Australia]
The Non – Pigeon Force / Tadaima [Self-Released]

OFFICIAL SITE OF THE NON
THE NON ON MYSPACE

Wil, the lead guitar player for Oklahoma City’s The Non, gave a copy of their  2007 debut Paper City to a 2nd-grade teacher and she played “Komodo” for the eager young listeners.  In response, one child said, “It makes me happy! It makes me sad!;” another, “I feel like jazz;” and another said the music, “makes me want to be superman and save the world.”  These often contradictory emotions match the frantically tangential avant-garde/not-quite postrock of The Non.  The quartet packs the expansive theatricality of arena rock into a constrained, possibly, uncomfortable space.  (Think of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.)  Opener “No Spark, No Fire” drops the listener on the crest of a tidal wave, practically at the peak of a noise-laden crescendo.  Effectively, you get all of the cathartic pay off without the (apparently) unnecessary buildup.  Tadaima’s track titles are evocative, perhaps on account of their simplicity: “Cloud Collision” is a fairly unmemorable title, but the song’s surprising tones, time signatures, and effects undulate together until  sparring thunderheads seem to be the intended imagery.  Tadaima is a big, in-your-face album trapped a deceptively small package.  It’s just trying to get out is all.

Fri Mar 5th: The Yoleus w/ Power of 2, Self-Evident, and Guzzlemug @ 501 Club, 9pm, 21+

Sun Mar 7th: David Daniell & Douglas McCombs w/ Whitesands/Badlands & Visions of Christ @ Triple Rock Social Club, 8pm, 21+

Thurs Mar 11th: Goodday Montag w/ Brett Engel & Chris Ray@ The Beat Coffeehouse, 8pm, All Ages

Sat Mar 13th: FEAST Dinner w/ Falcon Arrow @ Eagle Club, 7pm, 21+

Sat Mar 13th: Frontier w/ Battlefields, Via Vengeance, A Storm of Light @ Triple Rock Social Club, 9pm 18+

Sat Mar 13th: Dystopia Days w/Ghostband @  Bedlam Theatre, 10pm, 21+

***Richard Skelton – Of The Last Generation / Landings [Sustain-Release]
Last Days – The Safest Place / Sea [N5MD]
***Arizonac – Isis / Weirdcore 2 Compilation [Weirdcore]
Bosch – Moving Machines / Bosch [Token Boy]
Kerretta – Sleepers / Vilayer [Midium]
***Frail By Design – The End / The Time Traveler [Self-Released]
Pantha Du Prince – Im Bann / Black Noise [Rough Trade]
DJ Spooky – Call Sign/Aleph:/ / A Scanner Darkly:Motion Picture Soundtrack [Lakeshore]
Hammock – Mono No Aware / Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow [Darla]
Milhaven – Hunter / Milhaven [Valeot]

MILHAVEN ON MYSPACE
MILHAVEN OFFICIAL SITE

Much ado has been made about the White Whale.  Its luminous hide scourged Captain Ahab’s soul, and ultimately drove him into a benthic oblivion.  It is an enigma, a puzzle which, at its hidden center, one finds an uncanny fragment of the human condition.  Milhaven, an experienced post-rock outfit from Germany, cast a new light on the epic drama of Ahab with this most recent self-titled release.  Quivering guitars on “Hunter” evoke the anticipation caused by watching the endless seas.  “Supervulkan” throbs like blood in the veins of a beastly foe.  Tracks like “On and On” and “Count to Infinity, Twice” achingly loll about, like Ahab trapped in absolute solitude.  Milhaven captures the essence of a maritime tragedy.

KERRETTA ON MYSPACE

There is a fine line to be ridden in more “traditional” instrumental rock (traditional referring to the word rock, and not instrumental), between heavy riffage for the sake of heavy riffage, and lite-rocks-without-the-vox. I use the word traditional hesitantly, because there is no true dejá vu to be found in Kerretta’s debut full length. Hailing from New Zealand, land of former Midium label-mates Jakob, Kerretta’s Vilayer delivers a freight train of spacious, progressive, heavily fleshed-out sonic landscapes – perhaps inspired by the effulgence of New Zealand’s natural architecture and topography. Opener “Sleepers” induces the development of anything but, what with its stadium-proportioned projections onto the eardrum, but Kerretta begin to wax ambient during interior passages on “The Secret Is Momentum”  and “White Lie.” We haven’t seen such prowess and power emerge from this area of the world since Australia’s Meniscus brought us Absence of I in 2007, and Kerretta have even surpassed last year’s release Aura from Poland’s Tides From Nebula on the boot-quaking heaviness spectrum. Closer “Bone Amber Reigns” is a perfect 9+ minute summary to the album, encapsulating the very readily-evident maturity and restraint Kerretta have skillfully employed.